Recent Posts

Jesus

Yesterday, I did a chalkboard drawing. I do these once in a while ranging from every few weeks to every few months. The chalkboard I use for this hangs in a fairly prominent place in my home and I have to see it a lot, so I often use it as a sort of ever-changing inspirational poster, like a physical inspirational meme.

The drawing I did yesterday was a fairly simple one, I’ve done much more complex ones in the past, with only an open door in the corner and large letters sharing a bible verse.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. ~ Matthew 7:7

I’ve been on a journey, seeking out God for much of my life. I’ve always loved the spiritual world and it’s mysteries. Even when I was little before I met Jesus, I was always looking for the mystical and magical all around me. The world filled me with wonder and I loved it.

For the most part, religion tried to scare that out of me. Religious people want you to love Jesus and forsake the mystery. The mystical and magical seem to have little place in the world of organized religion. This is because, unfortunately, we’ve all been domesticated to think dualistically.

To a dualistic mind, questions and answers are separate, opposing things. Something cannot be both a question and an answer. In this way of thinking, Jesus is an answer to a question, not both the question and the answer. In this way of thinking, if I have found Jesus, I have the answer not the question.

But, lately, I’ve been trying to shed a dualistic way of thinking. It’s definitely not easy but it’s the direction I’m going.

Dualism, by its very nature, is an “us vs. them” reality. It calls for us to categorize and separate everything in our world, even people. And, honestly, I don’t want to do that to people anymore. I don’t want to try to categorize people and fit them into neat little boxes in my mind. I don’t want to be categorized by others so why would they want to be categorized by me. I know that I am categorized by other people, though, because, by and large, people are dualistic thinkers and they can’t help but put me in a box. But if I can somehow work towards no longer boxing people up in my own mind, then that is what I’m going to do. It’s a work in progress.

And so, on this path, I have decided it is ok to see the mystery of God, Jesus and the Divine, and to appreciate that not only are they the mystery but also the answer to that mystery. And it’s ok if I never have “answers” to my questions. The point is to keep searching and seeking. Because God loves to be sought after just as much as we do. We were made in God’s image, after all.

So I made my little chalkboard drawing, Seek and Find in big bold letters, and I wrote a little caption underneath to sort of explain where I’m at on my journey.

I woke this morning to find a very long comment on my post. An old friend I haven’t seen for years seemed to be in disagreement with some of the things I had said. They disagreed with my use of him/her in reference to God because they believe God prefers to have themself identified with male pronouns. And my friend seemed to take issue with me saying that I was dropping the need for right and wrong, saying, “if we drop the need for right and wrong, morality also becomes murky waters”.

My first thought, after reading all of that, was, “Oh no! I’ve offended my friend. I need to clarify what I meant!” That thought and all the feelings that were tangled up in it lasted about 2 seconds, if that. My next thought was, “No, I don’t.” And I’m still dining on that second thought, hours later.

Mixed into the first thought was worry that my friend was angry, hurt and offended. I don’t believe God has a gender and I don’t believe God cares if we call them he or she or it. When asked by Moses what God’s name was, it replied, “I Am.” I think God is a lot bigger than gender and social construct. God is “I Am”, something outside of name and category. So, in those first 2 seconds, I wondered if I should tell my friend these thoughts. Would my viewpoint ease their obvious discomfort?

I also wasn’t referencing morality when I said I was dropping the need for right and wrong. I simply meant I was dropping the need for me to be right and you to be wrong. I don’t want to leave morality behind. I just want to leave behind my own superiority and start to empathize with people, rather than try to fix them with my own ideas of what is right. So, in those first 2 seconds, I wondered if I should tell my friend what I really meant about right and wrong. Would this help them feel a little better?

But I realized quickly what I was doing. I was assuming my friend was angry, hurt and offended. I was assuming my friend was coming at me from a place of attack. And I realized that I actually didn’t know what my friend was feeling. Maybe they were concerned for me. Maybe they thought what I wrote was an indication that my soul was in danger. After all, I’ve definitely been the person who thought someone’s soul was in danger because of something they posted on social media. If I’m honest, I’m still there more often than I want to be.

And so, I went from feeling attacked and upset to feeling kind of flattered. If my friend was, indeed, simply trying to save my soul, well, I appreciate that. How kind of them! Perhaps, in the eyes of my friend, I am careening down a path that inevitably leads me over a cliff into the abyss of hell. Since they care for me, they are trying to stop me from going to hell. And believe it or not, I don’t find that offensive. I think it’s kind of sweet.

I do not believe my soul is in any danger. I’m not worried that God is offended by what I said on instagram. So, why should I take offense at what my friend said to me? They were simply trying to help.

It’s like when a child comes into the kitchen and their mother immediately yells, “Don’t touch the stove! It’s hot!” The child came into the kitchen to get a treat, not to touch the stove. But the mother doesn’t know that and loves her child and doesn’t want to see her child burned. The child can react two ways. Either become offended and say, “I know not to touch the stove! I’m not stupid!” and storm out without the treat they came for. Or the child can simply appreciate that their mother loves them and say, “Thanks! I won’t,” and continue going about getting their treat. More often than not in life I have reacted the first way and shouted, “I’m not stupid!” and left without my treat. But I’m trying a different approach these days. I’m trying really hard to see the love in situations like this and simply say, “Thanks! I won’t,” and continue getting my treat.

And so, I replied to my friend.

And now, here I am, telling all of you about this. Why? Well, I don’t think my motives are really all that pure. I’m writing this because I’m really proud of myself. I still haven’t reached the place in my spiritual journey where I don’t need to celebrate personal victories. This is a personal victory for me!

I don’t handle conflict or confrontation well. My normal tactic is to run away. Lol. I’m usually terrible at standing up for what I believe in. I often let others fight my battles for me.

But for several months now, I’ve been working on my conflict resolution skills. I wish I could tell you that I read a great book or listened to a great podcast that has helped me with this, but it’s just not true. Instead, I’ve been trying really hard to stop feeling personally attacked and start trying to see things from someone else’s perspective. This isn’t the first time I’ve had comments from people on my social media that have felt attacking, far from it. But this may be the first time I have switched perspectives so quickly. That is why it’s a personal victory for me.

Normally, when I receive negative comments, my adrenaline starts pumping and I feel scared and worried. It can take days for me to stop thinking about it. It can also take days for me to reply, if I even do. This time, 2 seconds of worry and it was over. That feels really good. It feels good to realize that no matter what my friend was actually feeling when they wrote that, I can still appreciate it and be thankful. Thankful for the care and concern. Thankful to them for taking the time to write to me. And I’m just proud of myself for getting there more quickly than usual. Lol. I hope to someday get to the place where I don’t need to pat myself on the back for handling conflict well, but I’m just not there yet.

So, to my friend, I just want to say, I see that you were warning me not to touch the stove. I appreciate you trying to keep me from getting burned. And to anyone out there, lovingly shouting at me, “Don’t touch the stove! It’s hot!”, I say, “Thanks! I won’t.” And I love you.

Advertisements

Share:

Like this:

I didn’t go to Bible college or Seminary. I don’t have any degrees in theology. I just have my own brain, Google, some books that smart people wrote, and the Holy Spirit. So this, and many of my other, posts on God and Christianity are just a product of those 4 tools being wielded by a dumbass aka me. So if you get something out of this, it either means I’m smarter than I look or… you’re a dumbass too. Let’s hope it’s the former. If you don’t get anything out of this, be assured that it was written by a dumbass and mosey on down the road.

Being me, I’ve spent a lot of time pondering forgiveness. I’m a rule keeper by nature. (First born child here.) So when the Bible says we have to forgive, I take it pretty seriously.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matthew 6:14-15

This verse always scared the piss out of me. I want to be forgiven! I’m not always the nice person most people assume I am. (I’m such a good faker.) I have shit that needs to be forgiven. (Like including the words dumbass and shit in this post, knowing it will probably offend some people. Sorry.)

So if I have to forgive people in order to be forgiven myself, I want to know exactly what forgiveness is so I can make sure I’m doing it right. Now, I know I’m not the only one out there who thinks this way. I’m sure all you other rule keepers are just like me (and the other Pharisees) who want to honor the letter of the law but not the spirit of it.

The Lord said:Because these people draw near with their mouthsand honor me with their lips,while their hearts are far from me,and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote

Isaiah 29:13

Dang, this verse makes that sound bad…. Oh well….

I wish knowing this verse had stopped me from trying to forgive “perfectly” but it didn’t. I’ve read a lot of verses on forgiveness and reconciliation. I’ve even written a blog post on reconciliation. (I’d like to say I went back and read it before writing this one but I’m far too lazy for that.)

As I tried to dissect forgiveness, I used all the tools available to me. I did word studies on forgiveness, forgive, forgiving. I used the Greek Lexicons available online to help me really get down to the definition of the word so that I’d know if I was doing it right. I thought of different parables and teachings of Jesus and tried to apply them.

And finally, after much thought and study, a new understanding of forgiveness came to me and it’s this understanding that I’d like to share with you. I should note here that I don’t feel this is a complete understanding of forgiveness. It’s just where I’ve landed on the subject for now and I thought it might be useful to someone else besides myself.

(Or you can skip this lengthy post and just read the summary at the end. Your call.)

Let me start by sharing what I always believed forgiveness to be for much of my life.

Forgiveness meant not being angry anymore and acting as if nothing had ever happened. It also definitely meant continuing in relationship with the person who hurt you. Someone wrongs you, you say “that’s ok”, smile and move on. The offending party might have to apologize to get the ball rolling but that’s the extent of their involvement in the process. Forgiveness, to me, was really about corralling my own feelings and making them stay in line.

But what happens when the offending party does something a lot more heinous than accidentally smashing your toe or yelling at you when they’re in a bad mood? What happens when they repeatedly belittle you, gaslighting you for years or try to break up your marriage? What happens when they spread lies about you or steal from you?

A big part of me believed for a long time that I had to swallow all of my hurt and anger, push it down, say “that’s ok, what they did was wrong but I’m going to forgive them”, smile and then keep having a relationship with that person. Wasn’t that what forgiveness meant?

Forgiveness seemed supernatural to me and nearly impossible to achieve. Every time I started to think I wasn’t angry about something anymore, I’d remember what happened and all the feelings of hurt and anger would resurface. Then the guilt would come because if I was still hurt and angry then I clearly hadn’t forgiven. It was a terribly vicious cycle of pain.

But being hurt many times in my life offered me many chances to try to learn how to forgive. And the last 2 years have been wonderful instructors on how to forgive in the midst of hurt and pain.

So what have I learned the last two years that changed my view on forgiveness?

It’s less “something I learned” and more “something I didn’t know I already knew”. But God is good (all the time) and the Holy Spirit knows when to lay an egg in your brain and heart. And I can honestly say these last 2 years have been full of learning eggs dropped into my soul.

I no longer think of forgiveness as an emotion corral. I see it a lot more as a financial transaction now.

Remember the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant? I’m going to put all the verses right here in their entirety but if you’re anything like me you’ll skip the verses and continue reading. That’s fine. I’ll summarize.

23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; 25 and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. 26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Matthew 18:23-35

If you skipped the verses and need the summary, here it is:

Basically there was a servant who owed a boat load of money to his king. He couldn’t pay the king so the king ordered him to be sold as a slave to try to recoup some of his money. But the servant fell on his knees and begged the king, promising to pay him back. The king relented but instead of making the servant pay him back he just forgave the whole debt.

After leaving the king’s pad, the servant runs into his fellow servant who owes him like $30. He flips out on the guy. Of course, the second servant begs the first servant to have patience with him, promising to pay him back. But the first servant is a royal douche and throws the guy in prison instead of having mercy.

The king gets wind of all this and calls the first servant back into his royal chambers and says, “WTF, bro?!? I forgave your debt, why didn’t you forgive your fellow servant’s debt?” And then in his kingly anger, he hands the first servant over to be tortured until he could pay back his original debt.

I grew up saying the Lord’s prayer. Not often but often enough to have it memorized. And when I said the Lord’s prayer I always said, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. Did you know that many of the translations of Matthew 6:12 (that part in the Lord’s prayer where we ask for forgiveness), don’t use the words trespass and trespasses but translate “opheilema” as debts.

And forgive us our debts,as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Matthew 6:12

Opheilema is a Greek word that actually means, “that which is owed, that which is justly or legally due, a debt; metaphorically, an offense or sin”.

And so I thought, what if forgiveness simply means, “you don’t owe me anything, your debt is paid”. What if instead of being a pushing down of anger, it is actually a releasing of debt? That seems to fit with the parable, doesn’t it?

This led me to another thought: if forgiveness is about releasing emotional debt, then what was owed? If someone owes me a debt, a debt that I then forgive, what did I lend them in the first place?

And so we arrivehere.

What if every time you have contact with someone, you are actually loaning them a small piece of yourself? Here is a little part of me, it might be small and almost insignificant but it’s a part of me and it is fragile. Please treat it with kindness.

We don’t just give away a part of ourselves to our friends and family. But to strangers as well. We present ourselves to the cashier behind the counter or to customers at our job or to the receptionist at the doctor’s office. Our interactions may be brief but still there is a small part of us left unarmored that has the potential to be damaged. All we ask of the people we encounter is that they treat us with kindness. In most casual encounters, we receive that little piece of ourselves back undamaged and we go on with our lives.

But with friends and family we give more and more unguarded pieces of ourselves. Pieces we cannot hope to have returned to us quickly. We loan them these fragile, quivering pieces of ourselves and ask only that they be gentle and return them as undamaged as possible.

But no one is infallible and damage happens all too often and all too easily. So we look to our friend or our family member and say, “I loaned you a piece of myself but you’ve damaged it and you are unable to return it to me whole. You owe me a debt.”

A debt of what? A debt of repair to the damaged piece of self? A debt of repentance and apology? Should the one who did the damaging offer a piece of themselves as payment? Only the damaged one knows what would satisfy the debt. But a debt is owed. And only the damaged one can say when the debt has been paid.

In most healthy relationships, there doesn’t really need to be a wrestling of conscience and a quibbling over forgiveness. One person says, “You’ve hurt me.” And the other person says, “I’m so sorry. Let me make repairs.” A give and take ensues and the two repair the damage and nothing more needs to be said.

But in unhealthy relationships, when one party is hurt, the offending party often does nothing to help repair the damage and may even insist they did no damage. It is then left to the hurting person to resolve the problem on their own. This is where the hemming and hawing and quibbling comes in. How do you know if you’ve forgiven someone if they make no effort at all to apologize, repent, change and help heal the damage?

Thankfully, you don’t have to do this alone. You have the Holy Spirit and hopefully a friend or two that can help you with the healing process. As you heal you must then ask yourself, “What do I need from ‘so and so’ in order to be healed?” If the answer is “nothing”, I believe you have released them from their debt to you. When the memory resurfaces, bringing the pain afresh, don’t believe you didn’t forgive them. Instead, take the time to assess yourself and ask, “What do I need from them to be healed?” If they still owe you nothing, you have forgiven them.

But just because you forgave them doesn’t mean you have to trust them.

Forgiveness is free but trust has to be earned.

24 But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.

John 2:24-25

I bring you now to a parable that I never connected to forgiveness until recently.

The Parable of the Talents.

Again, I’ll quote all of the verses here but you can totally skip over them and head straight for the summary. (That’s what I would do.)

14 “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; 15 to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. 17 In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. 18 But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 20 Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 29 For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 30 As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Matthew 25:14-30

As quickly as I can: a wealthy landowner was going on a journey and he called 3 servants to him before he left. He gave them each a crap load of $$$. One servant received 5 talents (some say a talent was about a year’s worth of pay, others estimate it was considerably more than that), one received 2 talents and the third received 1 talent. In the parable he gives no instruction on what to do with the money, he just leaves. But still the first servant invests the money and receives a return of 5 more talents so that he has 10 talents (math) when his master returns. Similarly, the second servant invests his 2 talents and doubles his money as well. But the third servant was afraid of his master, so he decided to bury the one talent to keep it safe.

When the master returns, he is, of course, delighted with the first two servants and gives them both promotions in Wealthy Landowner Ventures LLC. But when the third servant shows the boss what he did with the talent, boss gets pissed. He’s like, “Bro, why didn’t you at least put it in the bank so it could draw interest? Why bury it?” After that, he takes the talent from him and gives it to the first servant with the 10 talents.

Brutal.

But informative. If someone is being a good steward over the piece of you that you gave to them, go on and give them more. But if someone is an unfit steward over that piece of you, release them from their debt to you but don’t give them any more.

What I’m saying is: you can forgive someone but you don’t have to trust them again. Forgiveness and trust are not interchangeable. Though I grew up believing that to forgive someone meant that I also must give them my trust once again, I no longer believe this. I can forgive, release them from their debt to me and also discontinue the relationship. Remove the talent from them and give it to someone who has earned it.

Some people are not good stewards of other people’s hearts and emotions. Recognizing that someone is a toxic element in your life does not mean that you hold unforgiveness toward them. It means you recognize that they cannot handle your fragile, quivering pieces with the care, kindness and gentleness that you need and you distance yourself from the harm.

Keep your heart with all vigilance,for from it flow the springs of life.

Proverbs 4:23

Maybe like me you were taught that guarding your heart meant trying to keep it pure and unstained from sin. But I posit that guarding your heart means rescuing it from the ones who would do it harm. Not entrusting ourselves to them.

So what is unforgiveness then?

If forgiveness is letting go, then unforgiveness is holding on. I do think unforgiveness can be both accidental and deliberate. But I think the only unforgiveness we should be worried about is the deliberate kind.

Deliberately choosing to not forgive looks like making a conscious choice to remain wounded by the transgression and allowing the wound to fester and poison us. It means choosing to let the transgression have so much power over us that we cannot let it go, we are bound to it and it to us.

It looks like Bowler Hat Guy from Meet The Robinsons.

He was once the adorable and lovable Mike Yagoobian. But he let the wound in his soul fester and rot him from the inside out. It destroyed his life and every relationship he ever had. His inability to forgive nearly destroyed him.

This was a deliberate choice. Here is a clip of him talking to himself. (Time travel.)

Choosing not to forgive does more damage to ourselves than it does to the person we are holding a grudge against. In fact, the person we’re not forgiving may not even know that we have a grudge against them. And our plot to destroy them by hurting ourselves doesn’t ever really work out the way we thought it would. (Seriously, just watch Meet The Robinsons.)

But accidental unforgiveness is different. The wounds are still there. They are still festering. But the difference is, you are actually trying to heal and let go, not stay wounded and hold on.

Anyone who has suffered a serious injury knows that even when the injury seems to be healed, even something minor can set back the healing process. I’m actually experiencing this right now with an achilles tendon injury that just won’t seem to heal completely. But I’ve decided I need to head back to the doctor as soon as possible to have it looked at again. Because that’s what you do when you have an injury. You see the doctors and you do the exercises and the physical therapy or the mental therapy. I bought expensive hiking boots a while back just because I wanted to help the healing process along. It’s not completely healed but the boots have helped.

When we are dealing with emotional wounds that just won’t seem to heal, the process of forgiving might be a “more than once” process. And that’s ok. We may think we’ve forgiven it all and then something minor sets us back again and we have to go another round with the healing process. This doesn’t make us like the wicked servant who wouldn’t forgive his brother’s debt. This doesn’t make us Mike Yagoobian aka Bowler Hat Guy. This makes us humans who are fragile and sometimes take longer to heal than we would like.

If you find yourself having to revisit a past wound and deal with it all over again, don’t beat yourself up. Remember that you have the Holy Spirit who is your teacher and comforter to guide you back through the healing process again. And that healing process should ultimately lead to letting go of that emotional debt/baggage. Don’t be surprised if it takes more time than you thought it would to let it all go. And don’t worry that you’ll be thrown out into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Stop worrying if you’re getting forgiveness “right”. Instead, focus on the healing process. Focus on the Holy Spirit.

Summing up…

Forgiveness is not about corralling our emotions and pretending everything is fine.

Forgiveness is more akin to an emotional financial transaction.

We loan pieces of ourselves out hoping to receive kindness and gentleness.

But sometimes the piece we give to others becomes damaged.

When damage occurs, a debt is owed by the one who did the damaging.

When we release that person from their debt, we are forgiving them.

Forgiveness is, therefore, a release, a letting go.

There are times when the person who does the damaging is not able or interested in helping to repair the damage.

It’s then left to the damaged person to work on the healing process on their own with the guidance and help of the Holy Spirit.

Forgiveness and trust are not interchangeable.

Just because you forgive someone and release them does not mean you have to trust them.

If someone is a poor steward of you heart and mind, sever ties and move on.

Deliberate unforgiveness can be more damaging than the initial wound.

Don’t be Bowler Hat Guy, be Elsa. Let it go.

Accidental unforgiveness is more like an injury that just won’t heal.

Don’t give up on the healing process. Keep up the work to bring about the healing.

Like this:

Here’s a new song for you. I know it’s been a while. It’s called Cold Ones. It could be about vampires or it could be about trying to accomplish what we think of as the “rules” with our own strength. It could be about the people who indoctrinated others with their own sense of self-loathing and sense of right and wrong out of fear. Fear of hell, fear of death, fear of a judging and vengeful God. It could be about those who recognize the reality of sin and darkness and choose to fight against it with their own armor instead of nestling themselves into the arms of God and letting God protect them.

I wrote this song mostly because I’ve been thinking about 1 Corinthians 15:56 a lot lately.

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

Sting here means weapon like a bee stinger. So the weapon of death is sin. And sin gets its power from the law. But Jesus fulfilled the law for us. So sin has no power anymore. So death no longer has a weapon against us.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.

Revelation 1:17-18

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”“Where, O death, is your victory?Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:55-57

Jesus defeated death. We can stop focusing on sin now and stop trying to save ourselves, buy our own salvation. We can focus on Jesus. We can just enjoy him and our relationship with him. He has forgiven our debt. We don’t have to try and keep paying it back. It doesn’t exist anymore. The debt has been erased. Forever.

I don’t want to be a “cold one” any longer, someone trying to warm themselves with their own strength. And I don’t want to teach my children to do that either. Or have them believe they must behave a certain way to be loved by God. I want to shed my “protective” overcoat and receive my warmth from the loving arms of God, not from my own abilities and behaviors.

If I have not accurately said it before, let me attempt to do so now: what I want is Jesus.

I want Yeshua. All of him. All of who he is. All of what he means. All of how he loves.

I don’t want your interpretation of him. I don’t want MY interpretation of him. I don’t want my pastor’s interpretation or my husband’s or the pope’s.

I want him.

What does that mean?

For me that means questioning everything. I question what I’ve always believed, what I’ve always been taught, I question what I professed to believe 5 minutes ago. Because being open to being wrong is the only way I’m going to find Jesus. I will always question and wonder and ask why. How else will I find him?

There are a lot of questions out there. He has the answers. I can study the Bible until I’m blind, listen to sermons until I’m deaf, pray until I’m hoarse. But I won’t find him completely in those things. Not completely. He is and is not in the Bible. He is and is not in those sermons. He is and is not in those prayers. He is so much more. Because he is alive. He is dynamic and complex and wild.

And he loves beyond a measure I can understand.

Yes, God created the world to be a certain way. I will agree with that. But what that way is? I have yet to know for certain.

All I know with any real positivity, is that Jesus is love. And I don’t understand what love is. But I want to.

Movies speak to me. They have since I was a kid. It’s really just stories in general, but being a visual thinker, movies and television have always had a huge impact on me. In fact, when I write my own stories, I’m generally just trying to describe the pictures playing out in my head. So it’s no longer a surprise to me when I receive revelation while watching a movie.

Even one as stupid as Talladega Nights.

Don’t get me wrong, I laughed my hiney off watching this movie tonight. I needed to laugh. It’s been a rough few days for me. I try extra hard not to be, but I’m a very dramatic llama sometimes. And as the meme says, “sumbody dun brokt” me. Or rather a small army of “sumbodies”.

I’ve been experiencing different forms of rejection from people I love for a while now. And, even though I need to build a bridge and get over it (thank you Hannah Montana), it still hits me where it hurts and makes me eyes choke out tears.

Tonight, watching Ricky Bobby pray to “baby Jesus” over and over again did my heart a giant world of good. If I can do it somewhat succinctly, I want to try to explain why.

Without going into too much detail (or any really), let’s just say that some people don’t agree with some things I believe and I don’t agree with some things they believe. I think that pretty much sums up all arguments, ever, over all of time. But you get the idea.

The real problem (at least for me) is that I worry that what I believe affects my relationship with God. I really want to follow Jesus. I want to be one of the scruffy, common, uneducated disciples traipsing around the desert with Jesus, breaking all the rules and changing the world. I live in fear of being a Pharisee, thinking myself righteous and holy while in actuality living a life of selfishness and pride. I live in fear of being so self-deluded that I believe I walk among the righteous, when in fact I am walking straight into the gaping maw of Hell.

But this is flawed thinking.

This kind of thinking is changing the beautiful words of Jesus from:

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

John 13:35

To:

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if your theology is perfect and you have interpreted my words precisely.

John 13:35

How often I have quoted John 13:35! I love this beautiful verse. I have tried to live by it. But I fail. Oh how I fail! I stop measuring my discipleship by love and start measuring it by my theological prowess. And let’s be honest, I don’t have much TP (theological prowess) to begin with.

I’m not the only one. A lot of us measure our worth as disciples by our understanding of scripture and how well we follow the “rules” as we understand them. We read our bibles, devotionals, listen to sermons, read books to further our understanding of the “rules” God has “set out” in His word. We each develop a new set of commandments that we live by based on what we have learned over the years.

And then we become deeply devoted to these commandments. So devoted that we begin to fear for our loved ones who don’t adhere to these commandments. Even if our loved ones are doing their very best to follow Jesus in the only ways they know how. Even if our loved ones are as deeply in love with Jesus and committed to Him as we are, just doing things differently. We’re afraid that loving Jesus and desperately trying to follow him isn’t enough. Because, as we established above, we’ve changed the definition of disciple unwittingly from love to knowledge.

I’m not saying all this because I’m judging the people who’ve hurt me. I’m saying all this from my own personal experience. I’ve done all of this. I’ve changed the meaning of discipleship from love to knowledge. I’ve been afraid that loving Jesus and trying to follow him isn’t enough. I’ve made my own set of commandments and judged others for not living by them. Over and over and over and over and over…

As I grow and change and evolve, so too do my “commandments”. They must change because my understanding of scripture has changed, my vision of Jesus and God has changed, so my commandments must change too. And the cycle begins all over again as I judge others by my new set of rules.

Watching Ricky Bobby pray his ridiculous and completely hysterical prayers tonight, I realized that we’re all just trying to follow God the only way we know how, well those of us who are trying to follow Him anyway.

And I realized what a hypocrite I am, what a Pharisee.

What I realized is that anyone can be a Pharisee – conservative or liberal. A Pharisee is just someone who believes that perfect adherence to a set of rules makes you holy and righteous and definitely holier than those who don’t perfectly adhere to those rules. The rules actually aren’t the important part, it’s how well you adhere to them that matters.

Dang. Mind explosions.

I was a big, weepy mess before we watched Talladega Nights. I honestly didn’t think it would cheer me up. The world was completely ending. (I’m a dramatic llama, remember?) And I really didn’t expect to have a huge revelation that would lead me to shift my thinking in a major way. But it did.

Thanks, Ricky Bobby, for helping me to remember that we’re all just trying to follow Jesus in the best way we know how (those of us trying to follow Jesus anyway). NONE OF US WILL EVER GET IT PERFECTLY RIGHT. But if we are truly His disciples we will endeavor to love one another. That is how we will know we are His disciples, by our love for one another, not by our perfect execution of our interpretation of scripture.

People have hurt me, rejected me because we don’t necessarily believe the same things, but that’s ok. They’re just trying to follow Jesus the best way they know how. I can love them even if we don’t agree. I can love them even if they don’t love me. Well, I don’t know if I can but I know I can try.

Working on a new song this evening. Fun times. The song is below. But, first, I have a question for you: who would come to my house if I did a show and played some of my songs? I have a lot of songs and most of them no one but my family has heard. I’d really like a play them for people some time. So I guess I’m just curious, would anyone come? Drop me a line if you’d like to come to my house and hear some of my songs.

Share:

Like this:

Been feeling pretty down. Let’s not go into why. But if there is anything that cheers me up when I’m a mess of emotions (and I use “cheers me up” in the loosest of senses), it’s dwelling on the knowledge that I am not an accident. God made me on purpose. He desired for a Bonnie to be in this world.

This is super important to me because I often feel like there aren’t many who desire for a Bonnie to be in this world. Not that they DON’T want me, more that they are indifferent to the idea. “How do you feel about having a Bonnie in this world?” *shrugs* “Meh.”

So all day long I have been reminding myself that God DOES want me in this world. “How do you feel about having a Bonnie in this world?” *super happy anime face* “That would be AWESOME!” *”awesome” echoes throughout the known universe*

He made me on purpose and he made you on purpose too. Dwell in that.

***

This recording was made using Nick’s new gadget. Still working out the kinks, as in this is the first time we used it. But the recording sounds better than the ones I usually get with my phone. This is also not super polished because I did one take and said, “That’s good enough.” Also, there is a bit of dead space at the beginning. Just go with it.